


a prince's guide to being holy

by Marenke



Series: the quaren-fics [114]
Category: Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Self-Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marenke/pseuds/Marenke
Summary: There are no gods, Serefin recites mentally, a mantra that accompanies his every step.
Series: the quaren-fics [114]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896019
Kudos: 2





	a prince's guide to being holy

There are no gods. There are no gods.  _ There are no gods _ , Serefin recites mentally, a mantra that accompanies his every step.

_ Is that supposed to make me not exist?  _ Velyos asks, amused, as if this is all a joke to him.

_ Shut up, _ Serefin hisses. A moth lands on his shoulder, and he absentmindedly pets it.

* * *

Ever since he was a child, Serefin wasn't interested in the holy. He was a tranavian: there was no use for godly magic when one could simply slice open their fingers and make it themselves. So why care about a bunch of gods from another country, gods that were specifically trying to erase their existence, anyway?

Now, however, he regrets his lack of knowledge about them: these older gods, these beings that not even Nadya knew about, were speaking in Serefin’s head.

What did one do, when the ones they’ve ignored for so long came knocking? Serefin drinks, trying to pretend these were just voices in his head.

_ Drinking yourself into a stupor before noon?,  _ Velyos says, and Serefin knocks down another cup.

* * *

He likes the moths: they’re the best part of this entire…  _ Thing _ . Of being a cleric. 

Serefin doesn’t like the act of naming himself one: what a  _ joke  _ it is, for a cleric to be tranavian; and yet here he is, eyes seeing into the unseen, moths fluttering around him, constellations behind his steps. 

The gods surely had some weird sense of humor, and this was a joke only they found funny.

* * *

The worst part, if you ask Serefin, is that he wasn’t even their first option. Typical, really: were his father allowed, he’d have sooner put the throne on someone else's hand than to allow him to be king - blood and bone, his father’s first thought was to kill him! 

Still. To be aware you’d always play second flute to someone else stings a little, makes the scars over his eye itch.

* * *

He laughs, mad, when he finally shuts up the gods inside him. It cost little: his eye, only, but it wasn’t like he was seeing much out of it anyway. Maybe Serefin finally will stop this insane process of holiness, of being a traitor to Tranavia’s principles.

A moth lands on his head, and he does not feel it.


End file.
